


All the Way Home

by Mrs_Stiltskin (Lady_Belles_Teacup)



Series: The Gingerbread Verse [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Rumbelle Christmas in July 2019 (Once Upon a Time)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 06:15:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19941559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Belles_Teacup/pseuds/Mrs_Stiltskin
Summary: Rumbelle Dark Castle AU. This is a part 3 in my RCIJ Series Gingerbread and Spice. They were perfectly happy together, until a somewhat altered "Skin Deep" moment, when Rumplestiltskin discovers the price of falling in love at very inconvenient time. Here be the consequences and aftermath of his rash behavior...





	All the Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Rumbelle Christmas in July 2019 for @we-aim-to-misbehave! Her prompt was: A trip to the beach
> 
> It is I, your Secret Santa! I am sooooooo sorry this was late. Last week was a rollercoaster and I just couldn’t get all the words on the page fast enough! I truly enjoyed being your Santa, and I look forward to getting to know you because you seem really lovely and we obviously think a lot alike. I squealed when I read your story for @spottytonguedog because I was delighted to find that both our stories had PUPPIES!!! I do hope you enjoy. I’m not sure if you have read any of my other work, but this is tied in to my previous RCIJ fics as a third part to my Gingerbread Verse. You do not need to read them by any means to enjoy this installment, but some of the references will make more sense if you do. Plus…more smut!

In the end, it had been a seemingly innocuous trip to the beach that had been Rumplestiltskin’s ultimate undoing. He held one of the delicate porcelain teacups in his hands. It wasn’t the one with the chip that you could “barely see.” That one sat upon the most prominent plinth in the room, enshrined within the most powerful protection spell he knew how to conjure.  


He stared at the simple pattern with unseeing eyes, tracing the delicate blue flower with one black-taloned finger. The vibrant blue reminded him of the color of her eyes, and a single hot tear splashed on the back of his golden-scaled hand. Rumplestiltskin closed his eyes and squeezed, shards of white and blue falling from his clenched fingers to scatter amongst the rubble and wreckage of the room.

His beautiful Belle was dead. Gone forever, and it was no one’s fault but his.

Perdita and her pups had retreated to the kitchens. He could hear her pitiful whimpers, and the anguished howls of her whelps from below. The rage that boiled within him was too much sometimes, the Dark One lashing out and wrecking everything around him, and thankfully the dalmatian was wise enough to retreat. Though he was certain he would never harm the beasts, it was better to be safe than sorry. After all, he had thought the same of Belle, and look what he had done to her.

He glanced around the room, his rage spent, wincing at the broken glass and wrecked furniture littering the great hall, overturned tables and smashed pedestals, magical artefacts and trinkets upended and tossed like a petulant child’s toys. Again. He would fix it later, as he had countless times over the last couple of months, his body too exhausted and his mind too full of her to do anything but collapse into a pitiful heap and grieve.

Even the weather around the castle and down beyond his gates had grown inhospitable. Freezing rain and gripping winds now howled through the valley below the Dark Castle, discouraging treasure seeker and potential dealmaker alike. No one had made a successful deal with him since that fateful day the Evil Queen had shown up in her usual regalia to tell him the woman he loved was dead. Shunned and scourged for her mere association with him. The Dark One. Tortured by her own family until she had thrown herself to her death from her tower prison.

He had only meant to protect her. To give her freedom. At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself, but even he didn’t believe it anymore. Belle was right. He, Rumplestiltskin, was a coward, a coward who feared to confront the reality of her love and all the messy implications to his desperate plan, and his cowardice had killed her.

Belle’s fondest desire had been to be a hero, and a hero she was, and always would be. She’d braved the beast in his lair, even tamed him some, like the Evil Queen, would have said, and how right they would have been.  


Almost.

His Beauty’s second fondest desire had been to travel the world, but when she’d become a hero, she’d reluctantly given up on that dream. In order to save her friends and family and all those threatened by the rampaging ogres, the lady Belle, once beloved of her people, had promised to go with the Dark One, forever. She would be the caretaker of his castle, his maid, server of tea, laundress, cook, and scullion. A life of servitude stretched endlessly before her, adventure and travel was just not to be.

So it went on for many weeks and months, and all without a word of complaint (on Belle’s part anyway - the same cannot be said of a grumpy beast faced with stewed tea and blackened scones, or white silk smalls stained a mottled pink by ineptitude at the washing). If at first she cried for loneliness and loss, she soon dried her tears and settled into her new tasks with a fierce determination to see them done properly, however ill-prepared she might be. She was a high-born lady, after all, and had not been taught that burgundy socks should never go into a hot tub with white silk or how to scrub blood from leather trousers and aprons. But like everything Belle set her clever mind to, she soon faced each new challenge with intrepid enthusiasm and a genuine cheer that had taken Rumplestiltskin entirely by surprise.  


Like a magpie, she’d decorated her dungeon room with odds and ends and various fripperies collected (stolen) from around the castle - throw pillows and gauzy curtains and green growing things in little pots on the stony ledge of the high, barred window. Where she’d got them from, Rumplestiltskin couldn’t say, and didn’t ask. Keeping silent about the petty thefts, he’d continued to order her about with the same aloof sneers and dismissive gestures as ever.

Until one day, he didn’t.

Somewhere along the line, he couldn’t pinpoint just when, he’d stopped barking orders at her and simply observed his little maid as she flitted about her day. When she wasn’t reading one of her books (books that appeared magically on the shelf in her new turret room - the old dungeon was so drafty! It would be a pity to lose her to a chill!), she cleaned (badly) and baked (even worse), scrubbed his bloody aprons, and served him his tea (he’d begun to quite enjoy that even when the tea cakes were burnt and even if he was loathe to admit it). She spoke to him like she was interested in what he had to say, laughed at his stupid jokes, and smiled at him with sparkling eyes. Just as though he were any other person. As though he were any other man. Not Rumplestiltskin. Not the Dark One.

As though he weren’t a monster.

His plucky little maid asked impertinent questions, and merely giggled when he snarled and snapped at her. Not an ounce of fear in those wide, blue eyes, not a speck of the disgust he had learned to expect from countless years of dealing with humanity, only curiosity and tenderness. Oh, he pushed and prodded and showed his teeth, waggling one black-taloned finger in her face and growling at her about how she should be afraid of monsters. She had only laughed and smiled at him, shoving gently at the terrible beast and declaring that he was no monster, her eyes warm and full of something he could only vaguely remember from another life, one lived so very long ago. Affection. Understanding. Acceptance.

He had been the one to tremble then.

He could tell you the exact moment he fell in love with her. At least, he thought he could. The sun was shining through the heavy drapery she had just pulled down, and herself with it as she tumbled from the ladder. With hardly a thought, Rumplestiltskin had found his arms full of warm, soft Belle, her chest heaving and her eyes locked on his.Her perfect lips had curled up into a smile, and instead of shying away from the touch of a monster on her sweet flesh, she had melted into it. Welcomed it. There had been color in her cheeks, a rosy pink flush, when he’d set her on feet, as though her thoughts had turned as wicked as his own at the feel of her body pressed tight against his.

He’d run away after that. Disappearing into his tower laboratory and burying himself in his magic. For the first time in centuries, Rumplestiltskin was afraid. Afraid that someone could possibly slip behind his carefully constructed walls and end the curse, stripping him of the power he needed to reunite with his son. Of course, to end his curse, she would need to fall in love with him in return. Not just any run-of-the-mill love either, only True Love of the purest and most magical kind could break a curse. Surely that was impossible. Belle was good and sweet and gentle, and far too self-aware to fall in love with a monster as ugly and wicked as the one who had taken her prisoner.

It was this certainty that had allowed Rumplestiltskin to be drawn back to her, like a moth to the flame, darting in to touch the light and flitting away again. Allowing himself to bask in her warmth, but never close enough to be set aflame. Until that fateful day, only months before at Yuletide. That blessed day when he’d decorated the Dark Castle in golds and reds to cheer her up, and Belle had offered herself to him. He’d found himself unable to refuse. He’d felt the gentle tug of her affection, pulling at the fabric of his curse, the edges fraying only a bit, for no fire of love burned in her breast. Affection perhaps, curiosity more likely. Nothing his curse could not withstand.

And so he loved her. In every way it was possible for a man to love a woman, he had loved her. Rumplestiltskin begrudged her nothing, and if the pull on his curse grew steadily stronger, he either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. For he still believed in his heart that Belle could never truly love him, that it was lust and curiosity, and no more, that drove her again and again to his arms. To his bed.  


The books and the fairy tales never tell you what it’s like to actually fuck the beast.

From the sounds she made and the frequency with which she sought his...company, he supposed from her perspective it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. He’d been in many a boudoir over the long centuries of his tenure as Dark One, and he’d seen and learned much about the arts of love and pleasure. He was more than happy to show Belle all of it, and she’d been more than eager to learn.

Rumplestiltskin admired her tenacity, her quick wit, and her quirky sense of humor. When he tested her mettle against the Evil Queen, she had come away stronger and more sure of herself than ever, as regal and fierce as any monarch. Worthy of his trust, and deserving of his respect. He would have her as a partner, and when he finally had his way, the Dark Curse enacted, he was determined to discover a way to bring her with him.   


He brought her treasures and treats from his travels, exquisite fabrics, and fine teas from across the lands. In the evenings, when she lay nestled and sated against his side, snuggled up in her big, warm bed, he told her tales of his adventures and the far away places he visited where there were deals to be made and power to be gained. Belle always listened with rapt attention, hanging on his every word. When he was done, she would smile and laugh and tease him about the fun he was having without her, though secretly her heart longed to travel with him and have grand adventures across the sea.  


He could see it in her eyes. Though she tried to hide it, the longing in her heart was fierce, and Rumplestiltskin found that he could deny her nothing that was within his power to grant. The very next day, he told her to hold on as he took her in his arms and whisked them both far across the sea in a cloud of billowing purple smoke.  


They materialized in the center of Agrabah’s Grand Bazaar, a riot of color and the cacophony of a thousand ebullient merchants and ten thousand haggling patrons abuzz around them. The look of wonder on Belle’s face as she realized where they were had been worth every magical artefact in his vast collection. He had clothed them in the gauzy silks of Agraban royalty, and they spent the day drinking herbal teas and tasting flaky pastries filled with unusual meats and exotic lokum candies that tasted of roses coated in the finest sugar she’d ever imagined. They perused books in languages Belle had only read about, and examined trinkets of brass and silver and gold. She’d even picked up an oil lamp of tarnished bronze that Rumplestiltskin was almost entirely sure was home to a powerful and tricky genie, but he’d thankfully plucked it from her curious fingers before any harm came of it.

When the sun had gone low and red on the horizon, he’d gathered her close once more, magicking them both to a lush and deserted tropical isle. Warm sand shifted beneath their feet as they strolled along a sunkissed shore, gentle waves lapping about their ankles. Belle had grown up near the sea, but the shoreline of her homeland had been rocky and unforgiving, the waters cold and deadly. This was paradise, and they’d shed their clothing upon the sand as the sun was setting, making love on a bed of silks, beneath a canopy of twinkling stars as the fiery orb of the sun was extinguished beneath the calm, clear cerulean sea.  


He’d never seen Belle so happy as she’d been that day, and the memory of it warmed him for a brief moment. The thought of her hand clutched firmly in his as she’d pulled him from stall to stall, determined to see and taste and experience absolutely everything in the market, completely unfazed that she was hanging like a doting wife on the arm of a monster before the eyes of the world. The memory of her smile. Her tinkling laughter. Her gasp of pleasure as he’d set a segment of sweet-tart orange fruit upon her tongue, its sugary juices running down her chin, and the wicked look in her eyes when he’d chased the sweet, sticky trail with his lips in front of the grinning merchant to her blushing embarrassment.  


He recalled with perfect clarity the taste of salt water on her breasts and between her glistening folds and the way her skin glowed violet in the moonlight as she writhed and moaned in her pleasure while they fucked upon that lonely strand.

The starlit sky had been the roof over their heads that night, the balmy tropical air their blanket as they lay with limbs entwined until a rosy dawn encouraged them from their sweet repose. They spent the day among the waves and on the sand, the sun kissing Belle’s shoulders and cheeks a pretty, dusky pink before Rumplestiltskin had magicked them home again.

He was going to send her off to have a long soak in a cool bath and soothe her skin with aloe and oils, but Belle had grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and pressed her lips to his with such ferocity that he’d been completely taken by surprise. A tiny burst of magic flashed out from where their lips met, True Love bursting from Belle’s heart, entangling with his own, and the curse had slipped. He’d felt it begin to drain out of him, weakness filling him from the bottom up, and he had panicked, shoving her away from him bodily and regaining control of himself. He’d wrestled the power back under control to where it belonged, but only barely.

And the memory of her sweet kisses turned at once to bitter regret. He’d cast her out. Sent her away to her death. She was gone forever, rejected by her one true love and shunned by her family and by a world who feared the Dark One. She was never coming back, and it was his cowardice that had killed her as surely as if he’d cast her from the tower himself.

Perdita padded up to him, snuffling and whining in that way she had, and he reached out to scratch behind her ears. The dog missed Belle, and he wished for the thousandth time that day that he’d stopped to think about what had really happened rather than lashing out as he had.

“I’m sorry, love, I cannae bring her back.” He choked back tears that threatened to fall again as the dalmatian paced the room, clearly agitated. He watched with weary eyes as she picked her way through broken glass and splintered wood to stare longingly out the window. “I miss her, too.”

There was a tingle down the center of Rumplestiltskin’s spine. Someone had crossed the border of his land and was making their way toward the Dark Castle. He waved his fingers and a bright flash of lightning accompanied by a sharp crack of thunder reverberated around the Great Hall. Freezing rain lashed against the mullioned windows, the wind howling. Perdita tucked her tail and cowered but refused to leave her station at the window. Still the intruder kept coming. Rumplestiltskin’s irritation grew, and the rising storm with it. He was in no mood to deal, and woe betide anyone who tried to force him into their will. They would most certainly find themselves on the short end of  _ that _ deal.

Rumplestiltskin waved away the wreckage of the room with an irritated flick of his wrist, everything set to rights in an instant. He ran a hand down his front, clothing himself in his most poisonous and intimidating armour. Dragonhide and high, spiked collars, boots laced to his thighs, dangerous and dark, he contemplated what lowly form awaited the persistent bugger that was about to knock upon his door. A snail perhaps? That would give a satisfying crunch when crushed beneath his heel. A slug? A little salt and he could enjoy the barely audible screams as it melted into a puddle of goo. A rose for his table?  


His black reverie was broken by the loud clanging of the brass knocker, and he snapped to attention. Perdita scrabbled at the threshold, whining and snuffling, her tail wagging frantically back and forth, and Rumplestiltskin strode purposefully toward the door. The knocker cracked again, followed by the faint pounding of fists against the wood. A feminine voice called out, muffled by the thick planks of the oak doors.

“Rumplestiltskin! Open this door at once!”

His nerves buzzed, every hair on his body standing on end. It couldn’t be…

“Open this door, or I’ll… I’ll… Oh! I don’t know what I’ll do. But I’ve walked for miles in the freezing rain to talk to you and I’ll not be stopped by this bloody door!” The faint accent was unmistakable. Had Regina sent some apparition to torment him? What other explanation could there be? Of course he had many enemies, but still...  


The heavy knocker cracked three more times, and it was as though someone had thrown squid ink in his face. Perdita was biting at his heels while he stood perfectly immobilized, his fingers clenching thin air. The voice on the other side of the door was both familiar and impossible and he hadn’t the foggiest idea of what to do.

The faint pounding of fists against the wood began again.  


“Rumplestiltskin! I know you’re in there, and I bloody well know you know I’m out here! Open this door at once!” Her voice quavered, the pitch rising with her frustration and ire. “Don’t make me summon you or I swear by all the gods you will regret it!” There was silence for several long moments, during which all he could hear was Perdita’s low whine and the thrumming of his own blood loud in his ears. The storm had abated as quickly as it rose, and for an instant, Rumplestiltskin thought she had given up and gone.

“Dark Castle, obey me!” She shouted, and he flinched back. She would not be stopped by his stubborn obstinance. “Open this door at once. I am your mistress, no matter what  _ he _ says! Open for me!”

The heavy oak doors parted with something like what Rumplestiltskin would later call a sheepish groan, and even he stood powerless to stop them. He was breathing hard, palms sweating, heart pounding wildly in his chest, and when he steeled himself to look up,  _ she _ stood there staring at him. Her little fists were balled at her sides, her chin set, and her eyes as hard and cold as winter’s ice.  _ Belle _ . She was soaked to the skin, dressed in leather breeches and low-heeled boots and a burgundy brocade doublet with a high collar that mirrored his own. She shivered, her teeth chattering in her head. Matted tendrils of chestnut hair dripped forlornly about her face. She was absolutely breathtaking.  


His heart leapt to his throat, love and joy flooding through him at the same time as wariness told him to hold back. He had seen her grave, grown a lavish trellis of roses, and wept bitterly at the stone engraved with her name. Someone was certainly playing him for a fool. He danced on his toes, fidgeting.  


“Well? Are you going to make me stand out here all day freezing my bloody arse off?” She stomped her feet and chafed at her arms. Her lips were purple, her eyes shadowed, rivulets of rainwater coursing down from her hairline to drip off her chin, and his mind strayed to thoughts of chasing those wet trails with his mouth until he could warm hers with his own.

Perdita knocked him aside, bounding out the door and nearly into her mistress’ arms, jumping and barking and running around in circles until the pups came dashing out to join her as well. They wriggled and pranced, putting their muddy paws on her leather-clad thighs, tails flicking joyfully from side to side. Belle laughed and bent down to pet them all, her face breaking into a wide smile.  


“At least someone is happy to see me,” she mused, glancing up at him as she squished Pongo’s snout between her hands. He was trying desperately to lick her face and she was trying desperately to keep him from doing so while still giving kisses to his nose. It was a curious dance. “I missed you, too, my loves.”

Rumplestiltskin sagged, his mouth working, but no sound escaping.  


“How?” He finally croaked.  


Belle stood up, eyes narrowing as she contemplated him curiously. “Whatever do you mean?” She huffed. “I walked. You tried to keep me out with your nasty weather tricks, but you are sadly mistaken if you think a little rain and wind could keep me out. I really need to talk to you.”  


“But you’re….” Fat tears threatened and he tried to blink them away. Rumplestiltskin, the great and terrible Dark One, tried unsuccessfully to keep his voice from cracking as he choked out the dreaded word. “...Dead. I saw your grave.”

“I most certainly am not!” Her eyebrows drew down, her small white teeth tugging thoughtfully at her lower lip. A gesture that wrecked him every time. He tried to breathe but couldn’t, and he supposed it was a good thing he didn’t actually need to. The thought made him want to burst out laughing. He was certain he had gone mad and was now hallucinating this entire scene. Had he taken some potion? Eaten an unfamiliar fungus? She put her hands on her hips, and he tried not to look at her legs, so scandalously clad in skin tight leather. “I don’t know whose grave you visited, but it wasn’t mine. Who told you that?”

He blinked at her, inching closer. How could he be certain this wasn’t some sort of trick? He looked her up and down, studying her form, her mannerisms. She certainly looked like herself. Her eyes were exactly the right shade of summer sky, even if they were glinting with ire at the moment. The stubborn set of her jaw, the cock of her hips, her righteous indignation, it all felt… right. Surely Perdita and Pongo and the other whelps couldn’t be fooled, and there she was, alert by her mistress’ side while her raucous offspring bounded all about in their sheer joyous excitement.

“The Evil Queen.” Rumplestiltskin answered, his lip curling as realization dawned. His blood boiled in his veins, beads of sweat popped along his upper lip, every nerve in his body hummed. “Regina. I should have known. She lied to me. She told me your people, your family rejected you, had you scourged and cleansed by clerics until you could stand it no longer. She told me you had cast yourself from the highest tower of your father’s castle.” A strangled sob escaped his throat. “It was all I could do not to magic myself there and kill them all.” He cast his eyes to the ground, his hands fidgeting at his lace cuffs.

Belle stepped toward him, her eyes round and her face contorted into a mask of horror, her fists raised as if to strike at his chest. “You didn’t!” She sobbed. He looked up quickly, meeting her anguished eyes. He shook his head frantically, catching her as she stumbled.  


“No! No, I didn’t.” He grasped her arms, softly this time, not at all like the last time, when the beast that had arisen in his chest had shaken and frightened her. He gave a gentle squeeze, and she was warm and soft and solid beneath his fingers. “I couldn’t.” He frowned, his heart hammering away in his chest as he released her, though he still looked her in the eyes. “Who could I blame but myself?”

“Rumple…”

“It was  _ my _ fault! I had your love, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I had your True Love, and I pushed you away. I treated you shamefully and I sent you away with nothing.” He shook his head, a shudder rippling through him, the golden scales on his cheeks gleaming with tears. His strange eyes were wide and anguished. “How could I blame anyone else?”

“Can we go inside and talk about this?” Belle asked quietly. She wanted nothing more than to fall in his arms and kiss him until she couldn’t breathe, but there were things that needed discussing first.

He was gobsmacked.

“How can you be so calm? Why aren’t you raging? Hitting me? Throwing things at me?” He pleaded with her, spreading his hands. “I killed you!”

Belle snorted, her eyes flashing. “You didn’t. I’m fine. I’m here, but I’m also wet and freezing cold, thanks to your little intruder deterrent, so can we please go inside and talk? I have some things I’d like to say, and some things you really need to hear.”

“Of course.” Rumplestiltskin nodded, his curls bobbing. He felt numb from head to toe, his body barely cooperating as he stood aside to let her enter. It had to be her. Belle was alive, his True Love, and she hadn’t killed him yet. This was a good sign. Even if she didn’t love him anymore, at least she was still alive, and for that, his heart soared with hope and gratitude.

The dogs trotted in first, followed by Belle, and when he watched her plump little derriere move in those leather britches, he briefly wondered if that’s what she saw when she had looked at him, once upon a time. He dismissed the thought. Certainly his own backside didn’t hold a candle to hers. He followed contritely, trying to gather and organize his unruly thoughts, the gates of the outer courtyard swinging shut and the front doors following suit as they entered the Great Hall. He placed a protection spell, so he wouldn’t have to kill anyone who thought of disturbing them.  


Belle moved toward the fireplace at the far end of the hall and Rumplestiltskin took the hint. A huge blaze leapt to life in the grate. Belle warmed her fingers and toes, rubbing her hands together and stamping her boots on the hearth. Rumplestiltskin snapped his fingers and dried her from head to toe. He also conjured the tea cart which she fell on at once like a starving urchin.

“Thank you,” she mumbled through a mouthful of scone. He waved a hand, grateful once again that he’d repaired the wreckage of the room before she’d seen how shamefully he’d behaved.

“It’s nothing. The least I can do.” He stood awkwardly, wringing his hands. “Belle…”

“I didn’t go home.” She finally spoke, wrapping her hands around her steaming cup of tea and pausing to take a long pull. A satisfied hum escaped her lips and his belly flipped over. “To my father’s. I didn’t go back there.”

“Why not?” He asked, genuinely curious. “I had imagined you would go straight there. That you’d be safe.” She turned her wide blue eyes on him, quirking an eyebrow, and he wanted to cringe back under her scrutiny. Regina’s tall tale had spoken to what that fate could have been.

“It’s not my home anymore, Rumplestiltskin. I think we both know where my true home is.”

“Aye.” He dropped his eyes, a shudder running through him. If only that were so… he dared not hope. “But where did you go?”

Belle smirked, turning to pace the room while she drank her tea and told her tale.  


“I travelled for a while. I had no idea where I was going, just that I knew I wanted to go _ somewhere _ and do  _ something _ . Have adventures. Be a hero.” She sipped at her tea, her features animated as she spoke. “So I just… started walking. I ended up in a dwarf tavern, far to the east. I must have walked for a month. There I heard of a fearsome beast called the Yaoguai that was terrorizing local villages.”

Rumplestiltskin marvelled at her. By rights she should be throwing crockery at his head and beating him about the ears, and here she was telling him stories as though she didn’t want to maim him. He watched her move about the room, the form flattering fit of her travelling costume filling his mind with wicked thoughts. Wicked thoughts he tried vainly to push away.

“That’s when Regina captured me,” Belle said, taking another tea cake from the tray as she passed by and stuffing it into her mouth with a grunt of appreciation. “I was on my way back here. Determined to talk with you. To clear the air, try and make you see that  _ we _ were worth fighting for. But she took me prisoner and locked me away in a tower, I was there for a long time, two months I think. I kept track of the days with little marks on the wall of my cell.” She stopped, rubbing her stomach, and Rumplestiltskin thought she at least looked plump and well fed for a prisoner.

“I’ll murder her,” Rumplestiltskin spat. “She convinced me you were dead. And all the while, she was saving you like a spider saves a fly... to consume at her leisure. When it benefited her most.”

“No, Rumple, I won’t have vengeance taken in my name.” She turned on her toes, facing him, her eyes flashing. “I’ll deal with her in my own time.”

“I will not let this stand, Belle.” He shook his finger in Belle’s face, drawing himself to his full height and looming over her. Belle’s eyes turned to flint, and he deflated instantly under her azure glare.

“You will,” she stated, “because I ask you to.” He looked away, his lip curling, but he nodded assent.  


“As you wish,” he muttered.  


Belle watched him a moment, searching for something in his gaze or his stance, finally nodding to herself. Satisfied that he heard her wishes loud and clear. She wanted peace, not war, and seeking vengeance upon Regina would only stir up trouble.   


He scuffed his boot on the floor, changing the subject. “How did you escape? Regina is not one to just let prisoners out the front door.”

Belle grinned. “A very mean, nasty pirate broke into the tower and kidnapped me. He demanded I tell him the secret to killing you.”

Rumplestiltskin looked up sharply, “Did he have one hand? Hook over the stump?”

“Yes, he wore a hook where his hand should be. He was insistent that I should tell him your greatest weaknesses.” Belle met his eyes, hers softening. “I told him I knew of no such secret.” Belle dropped her gaze. “I wasn’t lying. I know nothing of your secrets.” Her lower lip quivered, and she caught it between her teeth to stop it from wobbling. She clutched her fingers together, worrying at the hem of her doublet. “I wouldn’t have told him even if I knew.” A soft sob escaped her throat, but she dashed her tears away fiercely, mastering herself once more. She was the picture of composure, a tiny smirk lifting her lips. “Anyway, eventually he made a mistake, turned his back on me. I overcame him with his own weapon and escaped.”  


“That’s my brave lass,” Rumplestiltskin crooned. “I always knew there was something special about you.”

Belle chuckled darkly. “I don’t know about that, he seemed rather dim. I just took my advantage when I saw it.”

“And the Yaoguai?”

“The same,” Belle insisted. “I just… paid attention and read the signs.” She looked down at her hands. “But enough about all that...”

“Yes?”

“Why can’t you trust me?” Belle’s shoulders hunched forward. “I swear by all the gods, I would have died before I told that damned pirate anything. I wish you would trust me.”  


“Oh, Belle, I do. I’ll tell you everything, Belle.” He took a step toward her, aching to reach out and touch her but not daring to. “I want to tell you everything.”

“Why do you need the curse?” Belle’s face shone with hope, her eyes bright with threatening tears. “Why you sent me away when all I wanted to do was love you?”

“Everything. I swear it.” He knew he was practically begging. He spread his hands open, delicate lace cuffs falling over golden scales and taloned fingers. “I’m sorry, Belle. I overreacted. I lashed out because I was afraid. I was afraid my magic, my power would be lost, and with it the one thing I’ve been working for all these long, lonely centuries. A way back to my lost son. I wasn’t thinking logically, scared that all my plans would come to naught, and I’m truly, truly sorry for the way I treated you. I was indeed the beast you should have feared all along.”  


“Oh!” Belle sobbed, her strength finally crumbling, and she collapsed onto the nearest settee, her face in her hands. “I’m sorry! I had no idea that my kiss could rob you of so much. Your son!” When she looked up at him, her cheeks were shining with tears, her features etched with sorrow. “I promise I won’t ever try to kiss you if it means so much to you to keep your power!”

“Oh no, sweetheart.” He sank to his knees in front of her, a mere supplicant prostrating himself at her feet, praying for her sweet benediction. Placing a gentle finger under her chin, he lifted her face. “You are blameless, my dear. Blameless in all of this. And if I had stopped my rampage long enough to consider it, I would have realized that having already accepted the curse, the danger had already passed. Your kiss won’t break my curse now that I have chosen it. I can still be reunited with my son, my dear, lost Baelfire. I was a blind fool, and all I can do is beg your forgiveness, if you’ll allow me.” Did she even still love him the way that she once had, so innocent and trusting in her love? True Love, and he had betrayed it in the ugliest way. “I love you, Belle, but I don’t even know if you can still love me after I treated you so poorly...”

“I forgive you,” Belle whispered, tears streaming down her face. She clasped his hands to her bosom, kissing his fingertips. He had chosen the curse over her, but as she suspected, there were reasons. Reasons fundamental to his being a parent, the most important responsibility one could have, as she knew all too well. He had pushed her away in blind fear, and it was a comfort to know he had regretted it. Love still burned bright in her breast. “And I do love you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t. You’re certain…?”

“Yes! Yes!” He nodded fervently. “I’m certain. Let me kiss you even once and I will prove it!”  


Belle leaned down until her forehead rested against his, her breath cool and sweet against his lips. Her eyes bored into his, her chest heaving. “Kiss me,” she breathed, and he tilted his head up to brush his lips gently against hers.

The jolt was there, the tingling knowledge that all he had to do was let go and the curse that made him the Dark One would have dissipated had he chosen it. Somehow, through everything, she still loved him with the fierce fire and delicate sweetness of true love. This was the stuff of stories, and it was theirs. Her lips parted, her fingers coming up to tangle in his hair, and he moaned into her mouth, her tongue sliding in to stroke against his, warm and soft and wet.

“Darling Belle,” he groaned, cupping her face in his hands. He nipped gently at her lower lip and she giggled, pulling away. He sought to follow her, feeling bereft, but she kissed the tip of his nose before pulling back to look at him.

“Rumple, there’s something I need to tell you.” Belle fussed at his collar, her fingers straightening his hair and smoothing it down where she had mussed it. Her teeth tugged at her lower lip, and Rumplestiltskin growled.

“If you keep doing that, it will be at least an hour before you’re going to be able to tell me anything.” He reached up to brush a stray tendril of chestnut hair behind her ear, running his thumb over her bottom lip. Belle grabbed his hands and held them tight in her own.

“This is important, and I’m not sure how to begin.” Worry bloomed in his chest, his heart thumping. He gripped her fingers and swallowed hard, trying to speak past the lump in his throat.

“Belle, just tell me.” If she was going to tell him she didn’t want to be with him, even though he knew her love was real, then he wished she would just do it. Like peeling away a bandage, best not to linger in the hope that it wouldn’t hurt. That it wouldn’t destroy him. Maybe she just didn’t want to let him in again after he’d treated her so cruelly. He couldn’t even blame her. He’d been a beast. Perhaps her sole purpose in returning was to warn him that his arch-enemy, Killian Jones, was after him again. I was kind of her to warn him. His thoughts were racing so quickly, he almost missed her words.

“I’m with child.”

Time stopped. His breath caught in his throat. Every fiber of his being suddenly hummed to life.

“What?” He shook his head, trying to parse the words. “I thought you were going to tell me you were leaving me.”

Belle lifted his face to hers, her azure eyes alive with joy, her plump sweet lips curled into a beatific smile. She gripped him by the ears and shook him gently, his entire world tilting on its axis.

“No, silly. We are going to have a baby,” she whispered, just before her warm, soft lips captured his own.

Rumple wrapped his arms around her, his heart lifting to the heavens as they kissed and kissed, hands roaming and hearts racing. He pressed his face to her belly, breathing in the familiar, fragrant scent of her as he kissed her there, marvelling at the thought of the new life that was blossoming within her. A child. Another chance to do things right. He would never abandon his plans to reunite with Bae, but he would not abandon Belle and their child either. He would find a way to keep them safe, to remember them on the other side of the curse that Regina would cast.

He lost track of whose tears were who’s as he peeled the clothes from her piece by piece, kissing every inch he uncovered. Rumplestiltskin started with her boots, his tongue slipping between her delicate toes, his teeth nipping at the arch of her foot as she giggled and squirmed.

He wriggled her out of the tight leather breeches, running his taloned fingernails over her pale skin, revelling in its softness. He kissed and sucked his way up her thighs, his mouth watering at the thought of slipping his tongue between her folds to find the sweet pearl of her clit. His ears longed to hear the sounds of her pleasure, to feel her come for him. His belly clenched, his cock straining against his own leathers as he opened her doublet, her pale breasts gleaming in the candlelight, her nipples already pebbled with the cold. He cupped them in his hands, warming them.

“You’re wearing far too many clothes,” Belle protested, pouting. She tugged at his intractable dragonhide, gasping as he pinched and rolled her nipples between his fingers. He smirked saucily at her, his eyebrows lifting. He snapped his fingers with a wicked giggle and a flourish, his clothing disappearing in a cloud of purple smoke.

“Is that good for the baby?” Belle wrinkled her nose, waving the smoke away with a delicate cough.

Rumplestiltskin laughed. A deep laugh, that came from his belly. The sort of laugh he had feared never to have again. “I’m sure it’s harmless.” He ran his hands down her sides, tickling under her breasts and she doubled up with giggles. “But I’ll try to limit your exposure.”

“Yes, please,” she nodded, looking a little green around the gills. “I think it’s the smell,” she confessed.

“It’s really only for show, anyway,” Rumple admitted sheepishly. He conjured them both to her bedchamber, as if to prove a point, blinking them there with no outward sign at all. Belle sniffed.

“I can still smell it, even without the smoke.”

“Magic?” Rumple asked, his eyes wide. He lay nestled between her thighs, and he pushed himself up to look at her curiously.

Belle nodded. “It smells tangy and sharp, and it tickles my nose.”

Rumple shrugged, bending down to capture her lips. “Well, I guess I’ll be refraining from magic in your company, mistress. We wouldn’t want to upset your delicate constitution.” He murmured between wet, open mouthed kisses that traveled down the column of her throat. He sucked and worried at her skin, sinking his teeth into the curve of her shoulder, and sending his tongue after to soothe.

“My constitution is far from delicate,” Belle smacked him and he snickered around the mouthful of nipple he was suckling. “Nor is my condition. If you recall, I walked all the way home from the Evil Queen’s summer palace!”

He released her breast with a wet  _ pop _ , his eyes going round, eyebrows drawing up. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. You should  _ never _ have been in that situation. If harm had come to our child...” He looked like a kicked puppy, and Belle took mercy on him, grinding her belly up against his hard length. He gasped and trembled, his hips bucking towards her.

“Hush,” she cooed, digging her fingernails into his shoulder blades as she writhed trapping him against her gently rounded stomach. “I’m here now. We’re home, safe and sound.”

“Home?” Rumplestiltskin trembled in her arms, and she clutched him tightly to her breast.

“Yes, home,” Belle gasped, sliding herself against him, his rigid cock nestled in her warm, wet folds. She moved her hips and he cried out, the head of his cock slipping against her as she worked to line them up. “Home is this, Rumple. Home is where you and I are one.” Belle cried out as the tip of him slid inside her entrance.  


“Please,” she keened, gripping his shoulders and lifting her hips to take more of him inside. “I need you inside me, love, please.” Belle moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist as he pushed slowly into her. She lifted her knees and tilted her hips so he could slide deep, deep inside.

Rumplestiltskin had never felt such a powerful connection, her wet heat clenching around him as he slid home. Tears fell against her cheeks as he moved within her. She was right. Home was within her, within them. It wasn’t the Dark Castle. It was the two of them and Perdita and her pups and the child they had made, and he would never be parted from them again. Never.

“I love you, Belle, so much,” he breathed, thrusting deep and circling his hips to grind against her, exulting when she arched up into him and crying out. He bent down, propped on his elbows, cupping her face as they moved and grunted, sweating and sliding, skin against skin.

“I love you, too, Rumplestiltskin,” Belle murmured before he pressed his mouth to hers, parting her lips and thrusting his tongue inside as he thrust his hips. His cock hitting the perfect spot within her to drive her headlong to the brink, her body began to tense, limbs trembling. “Gods, yes, fill me, my love. Fill me with your wonderful cock. Fuck me. Please!”

Rumple groaned, nearly bursting at her filthy words. His body ready, he reached down between them, his thumb flicking rhythmically over her clit. He needed to feel her come around him, to feel her break apart at the same time he did.  


“Come for me, my love, my darling,” he murmured, biting at her lips, his tongue fluttering over her palate as she gasped and writhed beneath him. His thumb working her steadily until she screamed his name, her walls fluttering and clamping down around him as he spurted up into her. His cock pulsed again and again as he emptied himself into her velvet heat, her sweet cries music to his ears as he rocked them gently through the aftershocks.

He never wanted to move again, as they lay locked together, chests heaving as they sucked in air, their bodies cooling. He wished he could stay, safe and warm and sated within her silken channel, but too soon he shrank out of her, a delicate shudder rippling through both their bodies.  


Becoming aware of his weight pressing down on her, he moved to the side, drawing her across his chest. Belle snuggled down into him, murmuring sweet nothings, and he pulled the down comforter across their thighs.

In moments, he could feel Belle’s breathing even out, her gentle snores rumbling against his chest. He reached down to stroke her growing belly, cupping her with his open palm, feeling her heat rise up into his hand.

“Welcome home, little one. Papa can’t wait to meet you,” he whispered, letting himself nod off to sleep for the first time in months.

_ Fin _


End file.
